How hedge funds can help Detroit avoid bankruptcy

Quartz – The city of Detroit owes its creditors $15 billion. Today it offered them a pretty raw deal. Kevyn Orr, the lawyer tasked by the Michigan state government with sorting out the mess, said it would default on some of that debt and offer creditors a mere ten cents on the dollar for other parts. If they balk, Orr has said he will take the city to bankruptcy court.

Detroit wouldn’t be the first municipality in the US to go broke. A handful of smaller cities had to do so, thanks to poor decisions made at the height of the housing bubble. But Detroit would certainly be the biggest—far eclipsing the previous record-holder, Jefferson Country, Alabama, which defaulted on over $4 billion of bonds in 2011.